


insects

by fairbanks



Series: goretober 2018 [13]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bees, Body Horror, Bugs & Insects, F/M, Goretober 2018, M/M, Worms, just gross bug stuff it's jane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-03 18:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16331156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairbanks/pseuds/fairbanks
Summary: Jane doesn't follow Martin home this time.





	insects

  1. **insects**



  
  


Martin slams the door behind him, breath coming in short bursts. Even when the lock clicks with a fumble he thinks of worms getting under the door, wriggling in and he’s off, to the bathroom and the towels. All his towels are old, don’t match each other, the kind his mother stuck her nose up at but  _ we don’t have the money for a set right now, ok Mum? Maybe soon, we can go pick some out together. _

 

He stuffs them under the door. He sits against the wall opposite.

 

For a long time Martin’s there, waiting, expecting monsters scratching at the wood. He waits but none come, just the typical sound of neighbors and cars and pedestrians. Martin waits but no monsters come calling.

 

He lets out a breath, decides to try and sleep, scratching an itchy spot on his calf as he stands.

 

-

 

Work is the same as any other day, even if Martin spent the whole morning expecting worms and a carcass around every corner. Even when he moves the towels away no worms come with it, even when he opens the door nothing hangs there but empty air. It’s almost anticlimatic, and Martin wonders how he can tell Jon about this when he goes in to the Archives. For some reason he doesn’t want to tell Jon.

 

“Martin,” Elias greets as Martin heads towards the stairs to the Archives. He’s always felt nervous around Elias, his boss who would send him packing the moment he looked a little too deeply at his resume and sandcastle came crumbling down. Elias looks at him and Martin tries to smile naturally under the look, tries not to read into it, and after a short beat Elias smiles. “Nice day, isn’t it?”

 

“Uh, yeah, yeah. Warm,” Martin stumbles and escapes. Elias’ eyes follow him even into the stairwell and behind doors, which is rubbish. He just didn’t sleep well.

 

He gets to his desk and sighs, scratches his knee and only peeks up when Jon comes by. There’s something about Jon that’s always caught his eye, even way back when they were both outside the archives and Jon just another researcher. Jon isn’t particularly handsome, isn’t particularly striking, isn’t really anything people write poems out of but Martin could, Martin could write poems about Jon.

 

It feels nice to have a secret that didn’t come with betrayal and termination, just a lonely little crush on a bitter taste no one else cared for. He thinks briefly of telling Jon what he saw, he should do it, even if it was only an alarming encounter and fleeing like a coward. He should tell but for some reason he doesn’t, feels a soft lull that says there isn’t a point. Jon wouldn’t believe him anyway, not without proof, and Martin came out unscathed.

 

-

 

“Are you alright Martin?” Sasha asks and Martin doesn’t bumble, surprisingly. He’s surprised because why wouldn’t he be okay? He is ok, and he smiles and says of course, he’s fine.

 

Sasha eyes him and nods, goes back to chatting with Tim while Martin draws little circles on his paper, waits for a call back.

 

Looking at the pattern is weirdly hypnotic, holes next to holes next to holes, empty little homes interlocked like a beehive. It makes him

 

_ itch _

 

just a little, just an itch up his leg at the idea of holes and homes. He feels weird, maybe that’s what Sasha saw? He’s weird, just a little weird, and when he goes home he doesn’t feel home, not really. 

 

“I think something’s wrong,” he tells his empty house, his cheap apartment no one but him goes to. “I mean, maybe I’m just going a little… a little stir crazy. Stuck with horror stories day in and day out, and- and I did  _ see _ her. It was horrible, seeing her, that would make anyone weird. I should tell Jon, shouldn’t I? I probably should. I really… really should.”

 

He doesn’t.

 

His dreams aren’t right, they buzz around the edges. He wakes up scratching his leg and there’s blood under his fingernails he’s scratched it so much, so hard. To grapple with it all he takes a bath, a bubble bath, sinks in and ignores his leg and how the nail gouges tint some of the bubbles pink. He thinks of home, and holes.

 

(Sometimes Martin’s mother would be too sick to get up, or to hear him, and with all the doors locked he’d sit on the rickety porch and wait. It was typical, and it wasn’t so bad, really. He could do his homework and if it rained the porch was covered so he didn’t get wet. There was a bee hive next door the neighbors tried to keep, sometimes they’d give him honey from it on crackers. He liked to watch the bees work, slot into their little holes, know where they belonged in the world.

 

The porch felt a lot like home, sometimes.)

 

“I should call my mum,” he tells the cracked ceiling, scratching idly at his knee. “I should- I should ask everyone if they want to go out after work to drinks. That would be nice. I could probably convince Sasha and Tim if I promise to pay for the first round, Jon though- it’s worth a try. I’ll ask them.”

 

He doesn’t.

 

-

 

Jane Prentiss does come to find him, even if it’s a little bit late.

 

He’s walking home, unlocking his door and suddenly there’s a  _ sound _ behind him, like maggots in meat. The smell isn’t something he’s ever experienced and a pair of hands with too soft, soggy skin grab him. Everything squirms, and somehow he just knows.

 

“You will  _ not _ take this from me,” Jane hisses into his ear, and Martin’s never, in all his life, been more afraid than his now. Fight, flight or freeze and he freezes, his legs and the air in his lungs. “You will not.”

 

“I don’t-” Martin tries and Jane pushes, sends him tumbling to the floor and scrambling back. His back hits the hallway wall and he looks up to see her, writhing and wretched in worms and a red dress. He thinks  _ lovely _ and doesn’t know why. He’s too scared to think  _ why _ .

 

“I have- I’ve given  _ so much _ ,” Jane tells him, advances and his leg lights fire. “Everything. More than I had. My blood, my flesh, my future, so many futures that didn’t belong to me. I’m a  _ home. _ Do you even understand? Do you even hear it?”

 

Martin doesn’t know what to say, watches in horror as worms fall from her and wriggle on the floor like they want to get closer.

 

“You won’t take them. You won’t. I won’t  _ be _ without this, I want to hold them and keep them safe, keep them warm, keep and you-  _ you _ think you could? You and your probing eyes? You aren’t fit to be a home.”

 

Jane falls with a too wet thud to her knees, reaches for his neck and Martin thinks he should kick her. He would, he could, but his leg itches so badly and there’s this song in his ear now, an ear worm he thinks with hectic amusement. This song is so lovely and Jane’s long fingers so speckled with holes and worms fall out of them, onto him. They touch his neck and she stares. So much of her face is just a home now.

 

She tries to bend her fingers, he thinks, but they won’t. They won’t curl around his throat, and his leg won’t kick in her ribs. They stare at each other and Martin feels… feels like he understands something he wishes he didn’t. It isn’t loneliness but a deep, echoing need to be something, anything, to  _ be _ rather than to simple be. To matter.

 

“They love you,” he tells her. He thinks he can hear it in the song, the burn up his leg. He’s so, so scared every word shakes. 

 

Jane blinks with what skin they left her eyes with, silver worms falling down her chin. “I didn’t ask for it,” she whispers to him, an aching echo as her hands move to his hair. They run through it, gentler than his mother ever was. “I didn’t know what I was asking for. But they do. They love me. I  _ am _ .”

 

Martin nods, glances down to see blood pooling at his foot. His leg is bleeding, and he feels something wriggling in him. More than one thing. He feels so very sick, and Jane wraps loose arms around him. She promises something he can’t quite make out, into the curls at the top of his head.

 

“I don’t want to die,” he tells he so quietly.

 

“You won’t,” she murmurs back. “You’ll be lovely.”

 

-

 

Martin isn’t surprised Jon is so terrified to see him, so wide eyed and agonized. Jon’s in the tunnels and it’s been… my, how long it’s been. He missed Jon, he realizes. He really did.

 

“Martin, I-” Jon tries, weak, steps back when a bee buzzes curiously closer. 

 

It’s hard to see Jon now, half his head one one eye socket filled with honeycomb, with the hard work of his colony. They work so hard, buzz in and through him, their lovely queen making a home right behind his eyes. Honey tends to drip out his mouth, he can’t really help that, just at the corners. They work so hard and make so much. Jane says he tastes so lovely when she kisses him.

 

“I’m sorry. I’m so-”

 

“Oh Jon, it’s alright. I’m a home,” Martin tells Jon, gently, so gentle. Yet still Jon looks horrified, sick, trembling. “I want to help you, Jon. I couldn’t before but I can now. I’m  _ something _ . Even mum was impressed.”

 

The comment makes Jon cringe, and he wonders if Jon didn’t like her corpse. He made his mother a place for a new colony, and she died peacefully in bed. He stroked her hair as she went. It was a beautiful day.

 

“Jane wanted to hurt you, all of you, but I convinced her we should give you a chance. Aren’t you happy, Jon? You don’t need to be scared anymore.”

 

Jon escapes in the end, but it doesn’t matter. Martin will follow, and find him, and free them all.

**Author's Note:**

> https://youtu.be/fNOij5h-w4c?t=38 actual footage of martin
> 
> i realized halfway through this is literally just that joke jonny sims made of martin being menaced by bees taken to it's natural conclusion


End file.
